fic rec (SGA) - Long Ago (And Far Away)
I ended up with two categories at ficrec again. o.O I have a bunch of humor recs lined up I'm really excited to share. (the flist already knows them, I'm afraid; I'm mostly recycling.) But I'm also signed up for gen, and I seem to remember that I wanted to rec one specific fic, but damn if I remember which one.
Anyway, here's a fresh rec, care of ficrec:
Long Ago (And Far Away) by everybetty and kristen999
Gen; PG-15; John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla plus supporting and OCs; AU; Words: 90,000- with over forty pictures (posted in ten chapters)
Summary: WWII-based AU. The Team as we know it has been transplanted to the South Pacific. Major John Sheppard, his navigator, Lt Rodney McKay, and his gunner, Sgt Ronon Dex, are stationed on the island of New Guinea on the eve of the island nation’s greatest battle. Native friend and sometime spy, Teyla Emmagan, aids the efforts against the Evil Axis powers.
This is a thoroughly researched historical AU that manages the balancing act of transplanting our four core characters into the pacific WWII setting while staying true to them as well as to that time period. This story feels so real, I imagined I could hear the jungle inscect buzzing around my ear. The scenes of the air battles are really gripping but the war isn't glorified, and the violence doesn't feel gratuitous, instead rather hard to read at times. I felt that the way the action/adventure plot takes place in front of the setting of the pacific war is handled very sensitively. All the voices are fantastic, but for some reason I particularly love the way Ronon is written. And there are a number of OCs who are crucial to the plot, but I don't want to spoil anything.
This story is quite long and requires a bit of spare time and it's not exactly happy escapist reading, but oh, it's so worth it!
In other news, I have read through the first two chapters of FMA in Japanese, whoooot! Okay, every few pages I double-checked the scanlations and there were one or two pages where I barely understand a single line of dialogue but still - this is progress, yo. This is the first Manga that interests me enough that I'm willing to fight my way through pages of kanji.
For the first time since our university in their boundless short-sightedness shut down their Japanese department, I feel like I'm making progess again. I'm stoked and even pondering the crazy idea of signing up for level 3 of the proficiency test in December, since they just added this additional level. Or maybe 4, to play it safe. (old 3 = new 4, as far as I understand.) I took the old level 3 six years ago or so and I forgot a lot. If I were to take even 4 now I'd fail spectacularly but a good chunk of what I knew has come back over the past few weeks so I think until December might be enough time to catch up plus learn the stuff that's still missing for the new level 3.
I have to find out what grammar they want. Keigo might be the biggest hurdle. And I need to learn at least a thousand kanji, but that's just a matter of mindless drill, should be the least problem. I dunno. The problem is that the class I joined are at least a year behind, so I'd have to learn it all on my own.
Okay, 3 is probably a crazy idea but 4 is doable, I'm sure. Well, I have until fall to decide, and I figure even if I decide not to sign up prepping for it won't hurt. So it's a win-win scenario. And prepping with the aid of anime and manga sounds like fun.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comments:
Anyway, here's a fresh rec, care of ficrec:
Long Ago (And Far Away) by everybetty and kristen999
Gen; PG-15; John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla plus supporting and OCs; AU; Words: 90,000- with over forty pictures (posted in ten chapters)
Summary: WWII-based AU. The Team as we know it has been transplanted to the South Pacific. Major John Sheppard, his navigator, Lt Rodney McKay, and his gunner, Sgt Ronon Dex, are stationed on the island of New Guinea on the eve of the island nation’s greatest battle. Native friend and sometime spy, Teyla Emmagan, aids the efforts against the Evil Axis powers.
This is a thoroughly researched historical AU that manages the balancing act of transplanting our four core characters into the pacific WWII setting while staying true to them as well as to that time period. This story feels so real, I imagined I could hear the jungle inscect buzzing around my ear. The scenes of the air battles are really gripping but the war isn't glorified, and the violence doesn't feel gratuitous, instead rather hard to read at times. I felt that the way the action/adventure plot takes place in front of the setting of the pacific war is handled very sensitively. All the voices are fantastic, but for some reason I particularly love the way Ronon is written. And there are a number of OCs who are crucial to the plot, but I don't want to spoil anything.
This story is quite long and requires a bit of spare time and it's not exactly happy escapist reading, but oh, it's so worth it!
In other news, I have read through the first two chapters of FMA in Japanese, whoooot! Okay, every few pages I double-checked the scanlations and there were one or two pages where I barely understand a single line of dialogue but still - this is progress, yo. This is the first Manga that interests me enough that I'm willing to fight my way through pages of kanji.
For the first time since our university in their boundless short-sightedness shut down their Japanese department, I feel like I'm making progess again. I'm stoked and even pondering the crazy idea of signing up for level 3 of the proficiency test in December, since they just added this additional level. Or maybe 4, to play it safe. (old 3 = new 4, as far as I understand.) I took the old level 3 six years ago or so and I forgot a lot. If I were to take even 4 now I'd fail spectacularly but a good chunk of what I knew has come back over the past few weeks so I think until December might be enough time to catch up plus learn the stuff that's still missing for the new level 3.
I have to find out what grammar they want. Keigo might be the biggest hurdle. And I need to learn at least a thousand kanji, but that's just a matter of mindless drill, should be the least problem. I dunno. The problem is that the class I joined are at least a year behind, so I'd have to learn it all on my own.
Okay, 3 is probably a crazy idea but 4 is doable, I'm sure. Well, I have until fall to decide, and I figure even if I decide not to sign up prepping for it won't hurt. So it's a win-win scenario. And prepping with the aid of anime and manga sounds like fun.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. Comments: